Dealing with Resistance

1. Listen: Encourage others to talk. Nothing reduces resistance more than talking about it.
2. Give Resistance Status: Don't put down resistance. It will only cause another to reinforce it to make it significant.
3. Refrain from Judgment: Try to decide what is right rather than who is right.
4. Avoid Force: Intimidation, demands, and orders never dilute resistance. They just subdue it. Live by the sword and die by the sword. Depend on force and it will kill off relationships.
5. Smile: Ease the tension with a smile. Smiling takes the rough edges off an encounter.
6. Be Sensitive: Tune into other's emotions. If emotions are inflamed, don't add more kindling. Let the fire burn out.
7. Give Acceptance and Approval: Acceptance and approval of people as people pave the way to acceptance and approval of ideas and opinions.
8. Be Courteous: Consideration and good manners hush the harshness of resistance.
9. Recognize the Nature of Resistance: Resistance is almost always an emotional issue rather than an intellectual difference. people resist emotionally and then try to justify their positions by fact.
10. Be Patient: Show calmness and coolness in the face of opposition. Don't overreact. Let it wear out its intensity.
11. Look for the Benefit: Search behind objections for the hidden advantages. The reasons for resisting are often the disguised reasons for agreement.
12. Win by Losing: Give way on minor points of disagreement to get major points of agreement.
13. Eliminate Verbal Snags: Words like "should," "have to," "must," "ought to," "can't," and "don't," are opposition-builders.
14. Nurture Esteem: Support other's prestige, build up, praise, and compliment. Don't make resistance seem unimportant by making the person seem unimportant.
15. Be Likable: Treat others with respect, consideration, and interest. It is difficult to resist someone pleasant and likable.
16. Seek Areas of Agreement: Help others be right about most things, and they will stop resisting on the few remaining things.
17. Use Comparisons: Parables, testimonials, similar situations that can be brought into a discussion always makes resistance less personal and emotional.
18. Show Understanding: "I understand how you feel" are magic words in reasoning away resistance.
19. Be Positive: Get in the "yes" instead of the "no" frame of mind.
20. Don't Argue: An argument only increases resistance. Avoid fighting, battling, or trying to overcome another's opinions or behavior.
21. Ask Questions: Ask why, how and what. Show interest. Questions encourage logic and reason which quiet negative emotions.
22. Accept Differences: Don't go through life trying to change situations, circumstances, and people. Instead, change your reactions and attitudes.
23. Forgive: Don't carry grudges, hostilities, and blame into confrontations. Such attitudes become hidden agendas that prevent agreement.
24. Love your Enemies: If you love your enemies, you do not have any, do you? If you stop resisting yourself, then there is no resistance in others, is there? Do not make life a battleground. Learn to give way, accept the differences in others and to do nothing about resistance when nothing can or should be done.

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Information adapted from CTAP Digital High School Tub
Permission to use for educational use only